Generally, electrical connectors are used to interface one electrical conductor to another conductor. The conductors may be terminated to respective terminals or contacts and the terminals, in turn, may be interengaged by the connector. In other connectors, a pair of conductors may be connected directly to each other without employing terminals or contacts.
In the latter situation, above, two conductors often are connected directly to each other by using a crimpable conductive component such as a sleeve. The conductors are inserted into the sleeve, and the sleeve is crimped or deformed to clamp the conductors therebetween to mechanically and electrically join the conductors. The sleeve may be encased by a dielectric tube or cup.
A wide variety of assembly, terminating or crimping apparatus or tools are used for assembling, terminating or otherwise interfacing an electrical connector with the conductors to be joined. Such apparatus can range from fully automated machines which are quite elaborate and very expensive, to semi-automatic apparatus to simple manually operated tools such as crimping pliers. The present invention is directed to semi-automatic apparatus, particularly a crimping apparatus for crimping a connector to join a pair of electrical conductors, such as the ends of a pair of electrical wires. Heretofore, such crimping apparatus have been unduly complicated and unreliable. Particularly when the connectors are mechanically or otherwise fed to the apparatus, jamming continues to be a major problem. The present invention is directed to solving the problems of semi-automatic crimping apparatus in a relatively simple and inexpensive hand-operated tool.